Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [100]
The Quartermaster-Fiscal informed the room that the signal booster was ready. Medford pulled himself upright.
Things were moving at last. Now they could do a sensor sweep of the planet and know the movements of the enemy forces. As a team of Adjudicators prepared the scanware, Provost-General Medford realized that in the next few moments, humanity might discover that it had already lost the war. Painfully slowly a holographic globe appeared, tides of pixels sweeping around the virtual surface, improving the resolution with every orbit. The computer was marking off the settlements in black, Adjudicator units in blue, enemy units in red.
There wasn’t a single red dot.
The computer buzzed a warning as a cluster of tiny yellow triangles appeared at one location in the northern hemisphere.
‘What are those?’ Medford asked. Adjudicator-Lieutenant Dareau was consulting the automanual. ‘The yellow triangles are fusion charges,’ he said after a moment. Medford admired the way he managed to keep the surprise out of his voice. Knowing Dareau, he was relishing the prospect of mass-destruction. The Lieutenant had mends in the Senate, and he got results. Medford was of the old school that valued means over ends.
‘They are concentrated at the Nightingale Facility. And there’s the freighter. Are you sure there are no enemy units in the area?’
The Quartermaster twisted a control and the map became speckled with grey. ‘That is every piece of metal in the area weighing more than ten kilos, Provost-General.
Derelict mining equipment, crashed snowships, pipelines.
The only military machinery down there is ours.’
Medford tapped the map, making it ripple. ‘That’s the nearest ground unit?’
‘Yes, sir. A hovertank squadron. They were based at Nightingale, but they are en route to Pryamshnikov.’
Medford spread his hand. It wasn’t large enough to bridge the gap between the tanks and the hospital. ,
‘They are a little over half an hour away at full burst,’
Dareau answered, before Medford could ask.
‘What’s the status of the transmat network?’
He already knew the answer. ‘Intermittent.’ The Scientifica have imposed restrictions on all non-essential journeys.
‘I want two hundred Adjudicators at Nightingale.
‘You’ll have to send three hundred, then. The others will vanish somewhere between de-and remat. If they are lucky.’
Medford considered the odds, just for a moment. He’d seen a transmat accident once. Ten years ago, during the Kalkravian Revolution. They had been beaming out hostages when the EMP from a fundamentalist bomb had hit: All of a sudden the people on the platform had become twisted, mutilated things. There was a sound that still haunted him: shrieking, warbling half-formed words and screams.
There was another option. It would cost a large proportion of his forces, but they would not win the war without the fusion charges.
‘Prepare for orbital drop.’
The officers began shouting at their subordinates or into their microphones. ‘Crash stations!’
‘Full armour, everyone.’
‘Hoverchutes cast.’
‘Put this station down at the Nightingale Facility.
When the Doctor and Tegan found her, Patience was sitting by the window, staring out at the raging storm. She was impossibly beautiful now that the colour had returned to her face. Even in a hospital gown, without makeup, she put Jerry Hall to shame..’
‘G’day,’ Tegan whispered. It was like talking to a work of art. ‘Hello.’ Tegan wasn’t surprised that Patience had an English accent, although perhaps she ought to have been.
The tone of Patience’s voice and smile had been calculated to make her feel at ease, but Tegan only saw a perfect row of teeth. She felt self -conscious in her polyester stewardess’s uniform.
‘Has your memory returned?’ the Doctor asked gently.
‘Not all of it,’ she said. ‘But I think that is for the best. I remember my husband and my eldest son.’
‘Your name?’
‘And yours,’ she replied, smiling. The Doctor looked away, almost coyly.
‘Your TARDIS?’ Tegan prompted. She hadn